The unexpected arrival of an Alien is something I often dreamt about but never in a toilet let alone a disabled one and yet, a few years ago I did just that…
While valiantly trying to hold onto my sanity in a job I hated, Pete a robot made of Lyrca appeared on the pages of my laptop, setting off the hand drier in the disabled toilet of an Edinburgh cafe.
I was sitting in my hubby’s family restaurant at the time chuckling at the idea-writing as if my life depended on it.
The restaurant was busy and after thrusting a few misshaped pakora my way along with a large glass of house red my hubby left me to write and chuckle.
I don’t know whether it was the badly-behaved twins creating havoc in the toilet, or the “I am in the John!” squeal from an elderly gent when they barged in on him mid pee, but somehow toilets seemed funny that night and I was inspired.
Before I knew it, Woody had entered my writing coerced by a Battenburg to help.
Woody a dwarf with a sweet tooth is the only one who could slip into the toilet window being that the door was blocked by a semi-conscious Lyrca robot and the café owner was desperate to clear the area.
It was a laugh a minute writing session that kept me absorbed while my hubby dispensed with the runaway twins and placated the elderly gent. Finally finished, my glass drained, my scene with a title I caught my hubbies’ eye as he appeared from the toilet brandishing a mop and several worse for wear toilet rolls.
He said little but skirted about the restaurant clearing up the trail of destruction-care of the twins. The tables were empty apart from a couple who look like they had been together long enough to argue over the TV remote and the position of a toilet seat.
I toyed with my empty glass hoping for a refill-to celebrate like.
Hubby asked me “what was so funny.”
“An entrance,” I said too pleased with my wit to register his disinterest. “but not as you’d know it.”
“I was just moping the toilet; not making an entrance.” Said Hubby with one of his “how many glasses of red have you had” look.
“I'm talking of a scene,” I said “for my book,” I gestured to my laptop “if I don’t find it funny how can my readers?’
The female looked up from her madras “you’re a writer?”
Her partner told her to “shut it.”
“I’m only asking,” she hissed “nothing wrong with asking is there?
She flashed me a sisterhood smile.
“I don’t mind you asking' I said. "In fact, I can read you some. It’s set in a disable John.”
“John? Who's John?” said Hubby.
“John is what Americans call the toilet.” I said, “it’s a funny play on words.”
The couple looked about as interested as Hubby was in my writing, being that neither thought the word John was funny, but I couldn’t help myself I just had to read.
The couple disappeared to the pub next door and by the time I got to the “Battenburg seduction,” I’d lost my hubby to the cricket.
I stared at him glazed over his mobile phone, he looked up.
“You not listening, are you?” I said.
He nodded “Battenburg?”
“Well yes,” I muttered but there is a little more than that.
He laughed.
“Battenburg a cake but not as we know it?’
Kerrie Noor Is A Comedy, Romance & Sci-Fi Author based in Scotland. Explore her recent work on Amazon or contact her for more information.